Louisiana’s State Penitentiary, commonly known as Angola, is one of the largest maximum security adult prisons in the country. There are 4,400 prisoners at Angola currently serving life without parole in a state with the highest incarceration rate in the U.S. It is also notorious for its brutal treatment of prisoners. Last month, The Takeaway discussed Louisiana's Governor Jon Bell Edwards proposal to move teens from a juvenile detention center to a facility on the grounds of the former slave labor camp. 

Advocates and families filed a federal lawsuit to block this move saying it would be dangerous for the teens and young adults, and a federal judge placed a temporary hold on the plan. Now, a federal judge has lifted the stay, and the state can now move ahead with a plan to relocate about two dozen incarcerated young people from the Bridge City Center for Youth to a facility on Angola's grounds. The facility is a building previously designed to hold adult death row inmates. The ruling allows for the transfer of children as young as 12. At a press conference in July, Governor Edwards said they would not have any direct contact with adult inmates at Angola, and would be housed in a separate facility, but parents and advocates remained worry what sending children as young as 12 to a maximum-security prison would only further the isolation and trauma wrapped up in childhood incarceration.

We spoke with Gina Womack, Executive Director of Families and Friends of Louisiana's Incarcerated Children, and we also spoke with a mother of an incarcerated youth at Bridge City Center for Youth in Bridge City, Louisiana.

Check out our previous segments covering Angola: Louisiana's Juvenile Detention Crisis.